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Sitting at his window, Dean watched the sun fall into the sea.
It was a beautiful scene. John’s kingdom lay in a valley between the great mountains and the endless ocean. It was a small, peaceful, perfectly boring place, which Dean hoped to never be king of. The only thing duller than being prince, he determined, was being king.
He didn’t have much to do these days. In the royal training rooms, he practiced with the sword every day. He ate tedious dinners with his brother, his father and his advisers. He missed Cas. And then he went to sleep.
Cas was… Someone. Someone he had managed to pretend he’s forgotten.
Under the last sun-rays of the dying afternoon, he heard a soft knock on his door.
“Come in, Bitch,” he said with a sigh, not really meaning it, but cracking a smile whatsoever. A passed opportunity to aggravate his little brother was truly an affront to all big siblings.
“What would you have done if this was Dad instead of me at the door?” Sam asked in a grumble, slumping down on an armchair close by. “Jerk.”
“No one knocks so politely except for you. No, correction – no one knocks except for you. One time they will walk in on me wandering about in my panties, and I will be embarrassed.”
Sam let out a huff. “And where exactly would you have gotten those panties from?”
“I get around, Sammy. I get around.”
His brother was quiet for a few moments, and Dean knew what would come next.
“Sammy, if you’re gonna start talking about feelings, I don’t wanna hear it.”
“I just…” As young as he was, Sam was already an entire wiry tree of a person, and sharp as a needle. “I just don’t understand-“
“Yeah, well, I don’t either,” Dean cut him off in a mutter. Another moment of silence. And then, very quietly:
“But he wouldn’t have just left.”
“It’s none of your damn business. Now get the hell out of my room.”
Sam looked at him, clearly hurt, and left.
He just didn’t get it. His brother’s obsessive search for an explanation, for a happy ending. Cas was the love of his life for a good long while, and then one day he just disappeared. Maybe he died. Maybe he had a good reason for it. Or maybe he just left. It didn’t matter; Dean’s heart turned to stone all the same, and it wasn’t planning on opening up to anyone anytime soon. And it wasn’t like he could grab a search party and go on a search – “Hey, dad, listen, girls are cool and all, but I don’t really wanna get married to any of the endless princesses you’re sending my way at dinnertime. Oh, by the way, is it okay if I go look for my lost lover? His name is The Man who’s Boning your Son. You didn’t need heirs or anything, did you?”
Sam could take care of the heirs, for all he cared. And then this kingdom would be doomed to worship princes and princesses who didn’t eat gluten and used the word whom.
But they would be loved. No, Sam wouldn’t make for a bad ruler. He’s got everything it takes: patience and composure, humility and diligence.
Everything that Dean has not.
*
In the gathering hall, on the first night of every month, the king held a council meeting with his advisers.
Largely, it was loud and pompous. The delegates asserted themselves by talking over each other, suggesting horrible strategic decisions and occasionally hurling wine at each other’s faces, while John sat at the head of the table and quietly contemplated his existence.
Today, something was different. For once, the advisers were all sitting in their chairs, quiet and solemn, as he walked in the door. Secondly, no one’s robe was red with wine stains, or missing due to wine consumption. They sat and watched John walk up to his chair and sit down. Then one of them cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Your Lordness,” he opened. “News today. Not good ones, I'm afraid.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the prophet,” the adviser, a small man named Crowley, said. “He saw something. The Flood.”
“A mythical phenomenon, your Kingness,” said another adviser, Asmodeus, swirling the end of his mustache between two fingers.
“According to the prophecy, The Flood shall engulf the entire kingdom. It’s quick and forceful, and land will become sea in a matter of days. With our… Unfortunate location, and with the Flood coming from the sea and being blocked by the mountains… It’s a matter of hours before we turn into sea-beast food.”
“I see,” said John. “Crowley, make preparations for departure. Asmodeus, release a message for the people to assemble their belongings and make their preparations as well. Rowena, I want possible locations available for settlement. I shall talk to my sons.”
“There is… One more thing,” spoke someone from the back of the room. “The Flood… as a force of nature sent by the Gods above, tends to spare the ones who submit to it. A certain sacrifice, a generous offering – say, a son – can do wonders to the odds of the kingdom’s survival.”
“The Gods are nothing but a child’s tale, Azazel,” John muttered. “We all know that.”
“Would you be willing to bet your life and all your people’s lives on it as well?” Azazel asked slyly. John gave him a long, hard look, before standing from his chair and leaving the room.
“So, flood” Dean said, looking at the king.
“The Flood,” said John. “Gather the essentials. Arrange for a hasty leaving. We’ll have no time to waste when the first tides come.”
“Come on, Sammy,” Dean smirked. “Let’s go pack your security blanket.”
“This isn’t a joke, Dean,” John fumed. “Any day, now, our entire world could be wiped clean. And we with it, if we aren’t careful.”
Dean glanced at his father, finally listening. The hesitation in his eyes as they skipped to his brother and then to the floor was unmistakable.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“I…” Dean sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Just this friend who might come visit. If we go…” He took a breath, and clenched his jaw. The next words that came out of his mouth seemed painful for him to utter. “If we go, he won’t know where to look. We’ll never see each other again.”
*
In the end, the Flood came before Cas did. They made for a hasty departure, just like John had promised, and as the water covered the earth and engulfed ordinary life, no one looked back. No one except Dean.
The mountainous path was treacherous and slippery. Between his father and his brother, Dean took one last glance as the sea filled up the valley like water pooling up in a sink, and rode into the mountains. Beside him, John rode fast and close. He sent out his hand towards Dean, and pulled it back. With a heavy heart, he urged his horse forward and the beast picked up its pace.
Not a moment later, he was replaced with another rider. Azazel was approaching Dean on his horse, and when he got close enough, he pushed.
Dean’s horse staggered and he tumbled down onto the ground, and rolled down the slope. Eventually, his body hit water.
*
The first thing he felt when he woke up was a numbness in his legs. The second thing was very, very moist.
He opened his eyes to a cool sun, blinding him with white, direct light. Squinting, he looked around and tried to make sense of the shapes around him.
Wet. Wet everywhere. Carefully, he tried to move his hand. A soft sploosh accompanied the motion, and as his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, he became aware that he was at the heart of the sea. Above him, only burning white light; around him, only deep turquoise for miles and miles away; below him, blue so deep it turned black.
And he wasn’t drowning. But he wasn’t floating either. His feet moved in synchronicity with the sea, balancing him on the surface of the water.
His shirt was still on his shoulders, torn and ripped and soaked wet. It did more bad than good, now, he felt. He pulled it off and let it drift away from him. He reached out a hand to feel whether his pants were still intact, and his fingers touched the slick scales of a fish. He recoiled and sent his hand again – and touched another fish. Only it felt more like one big fish, which was placed… exactly where his legs were supposed to be.
Slowly, with dread rising in his chest like water in his lungs, he looked down at his legs.
Only they weren’t legs anymore. They were one long, silvery-turquoise tail.
A fish’s tail.
“What the fuck?” He whispered, horror stricken. “What the fuck?” Instinctively, he flinched away from the tail, but it followed him and continued his movement. It supported him and balanced the upper part of his body. "What the fuck?”
How and when did he get a tail? When the hell did he lose his legs? Slowly, his brain started drifting towards the events that led him to waking up amidst the sea. He remembered falling from his horse – no, being pushed off it – and rolling down the mountain. He remembered the water washing over him, and he remembered dying. Or, thinking he was dying.
He should be dead.
So he got to keep his life. And in return, the sea took his legs. And he knew he probably had much more pressing issues right now, but he didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to pee.
Nor was he sure what was he supposed to do now. There was no sign of land on the horizon, and even if there had been, he would have had to crawl onto it and move forward by shimmying on the ground like a… like a fish. And he couldn’t pee. And he was getting kind of hungry. The last thing he wanted to do right now was eat live fish. Apart from it being exceptionally gross, it felt… it felt sort of weird now.
There was nothing to do but swim around aimlessly and squint at the sky. After a few hours, the sun started making its way down the horizon. As Dean watched it set and splashed water with his tail – which was surprisingly entertaining, putting the ahhhhh-I-have-no-feet factor aside – he noticed something move in his peripheral vision.
Slow and reluctant, it made its way across the surface until Dean’s eyes created a shape out of the bump: it was a smooth, black blob, in the shape and size of a sea monster. When it lifted its head and craned its neck upwards, stretching it for feet and feet above the water, from its throat escaped a soft noise that sounded alarmingly like a sea monster. And the speed at which it was now approaching Dean – it was definitely the speed of a sea monster.
Dean cursed under his breath and turned the other direction, beginning to swim for his life. He found that he could swim in impressive speed, his tail allowing him to gracefully glide across the sea, and dive and ascend inside the water with the agility of a real fish. He rose to the surface and glided across it, parting the water as he swam through it, and looked back. The creature was a hundred times bigger than him, and most certainly faster, but it hung back. Dean stopped, and the feel of the wind in his hair subsided. He examined the animal, and it examined him back.
“Stay back,” he shouted, but it came out hesitant and not the slightest convincing. The creature blinked at him. Its black tail swayed languidly behind it.
“What are you?” Dean called. The creature hummed quietly. “What am I?” Dean tried. This time, the beast’s tail fell into the water with a wide splash and it let out a low cry.
“Okay,” Dean muttered under his breath. “Super helpful.”
The animal huffed, and Dean could almost swear the sound came out annoyed. He gritted his teeth and scratched his arm. “So, say,” he said. He couldn’t believe he was talking to a sea beast right now. He couldn’t believe any of this. Tomorrow he’ll be growing wings and flying in the sky alongside pink unicorns and red-nosed reindeer. “Do you happen to know, maybe, where’s… Land?”
The beast pointed its head in Dean’s direction.
“No. Not me. Land.”
It huffed in annoyance again – Dean was getting more and more certain that this was annoyance – and gestured at Dean again. Well, not exactly at Dean, but maybe… Past him? He turned around and scanned the horizon – and as promised, two small bumps rose from it in the distance. Dean turned back to the creature.
“No, man. That’s not land. That’s a set of boobies.”
Huff. Dean was starting to fear that one of those times, fire would come out of its nostrils instead of air. So he examined the bumps again, and determined that there was a certain, small, small chance that they were, in fact, land.
“But…” He said, feeling lost. “The nearest land should be my home. Is this… Is this what’s left of my home?” He looked at the beast unhappily, and it looked back at him.
Dean sighed dismally, and watched the tranquil water that covered the ruins of his kingdom. When the beast timidly tried to swim closer to him, he swam away without a word; already he was getting used to the quiet language of the ocean. Without a home, without his family and his sweetheart, and without food, he searched for somewhere to sleep in. When he found an assembly of rocks that hid a cool, damp cave within them, he rested his torso on its rock floor and fell asleep.
Slowly, Dean got used to life at sea. he swam to where his kingdom once was and settled there, not doing much but scaring away any creature that got near. He missed his brother and more than ever he wanted to have Cas beside him. Alone, not knowing what to do or think, his mind kept wandering to better times with green grass and a bright sun and Cas. And there, always in the margins, the black sea monster watched him. Wherever he went, it followed, always far away, but always keeping an eye on him. It nearly drove him out of his mind. He just wanted to be alone and feel miserable, but it was hard to genuinely feel sad when a weird looking seal was spritzing water at you from five hundred feet away.
Most mornings, he would wake up to a tangle of seaweed resting on a rock nearby. It looked more like something that comes out of your nose when you’re sick rather than something you eat, but he’d take it.
Life went on. But it felt that it had left Dean behind. The sea was big and empty and no one ever crossed Dean’s path. Until one morning, he was doing his tail stretches when, for the first time, he saw a ship approaching.
He squinted at the slowly growing dot until it became a triangle of brown wood and white sails, at its top a black flag. Watching the ship grow bigger and bigger, Dean found himself floating in the way of a now rapidly advancing pirate ship. He dove into the ocean and started swimming towards it. The ship was close enough now that he could hear the roaring of the crew and of the sea as it was being halved. The scene was threatening, but Dean didn’t see that. As the ship approached, Dean swam right to it.
“Help!” He started yelling. “Help!”
This was it. he was getting out of this hole one way or another, even if he had to beg or bribe or punch his way onto that ship.
Even if he had to tail-slap.
The ship slowed down as it came near him, and on the deck appeared a scary-looking man and stared down on him.
“Please, I’m lost,” Dean said in the most helpless voice he could muster, and prepared for a fight.
“I could tell,” the man, who seemed to be the captain, declared. When he spoke, spots of gold glinted in his teeth. “I am very perceptive.” Then his eyes glided down Dean’s body and settled on his tail. “Are you wearing some kind of… Body suit?” He asked. Dean looked down.
“Uh… Yeah. That’s… That’s what it is.”
The captain squinted down at him. “We’ll take you,” he said slowly. “If you can hop on board. If not…” He glanced at the watching crew mates and smirked. “Dinner.”
The crewmen threw a rope ladder down from the deck and waited for Dean to come up with their knives in their hands. Dean smiled charmingly, apologetically – and blinked.
His thoughts were racing, but he couldn’t find any way around this. So, with some effort, he started climbing the ladder using only his two arms.
“Beautiful tail you’ve got there,” the captain noted dryly.
“It’s satin,” Dean called back from the ladder. “Hi,” he said to the huge guy who waited for him with a knife at the top. “Could you help me up?”
The guy reached out a hand, and Dean grabbed it and pulled him off the deck. Before anyone on board realized what had happened, the captain found himself at the end of the big guy’s blade, with Dean on the other side of it. Without delay, the captain whipped out a sword and blocked Dean’s knife, and a small fight ensued – the captain with mobility and power, and Dean with one hand and a small blade. But he held his own with some dignity.
“What kind of monster are you?” The captain yelled when Dean head-bumped another pirate while blocking his sword blow at the same time.
“I don’t know!” Dean yelled back. After throwing another man off board he called, “When you said dinner, you meant…?”
“I will sell you to the gypsies to be their show pet! You will earn me at least eight meals!”
“Oh, thank the Gods,” muttered Dean, and sent a lethal blow at the captain’s chest – only he missed, and the captain forced the blade out of his hand. He raised his hand, and Dean prepared his nose for a close encounter with a punch. Only at that moment, a great movement rattled the ship, and its entire crew flew to the other side of the deck. Out of the ocean erupted what had disturbed the ship: the sea monster.
Dean climbed back down to the sea, and the monster spit a tangle of seaweed at him.
“Stop giving me this gross… sea lettuce,” Dean grumbled and wiped monster spit off his face. “Eh… thanks, though.”
The monster pushed the ship away, until it started floating in the direction it came from. Dean wondered what its crew mates would think when they woke up with a headache, and with Dean nowhere to be seen. And then he wondered what it must have looked like from the side: Dean fighting for his life, losing the fight, and being saved by a giant black stuffed animal right before he was about to be captured. The monster took another look at him and at the seaweed hanging from his head, and left.
But it didn’t leave Dean’s mind. He couldn’t shake off an eerie feeling, a feeling that there was something familiar about the creature. The way it reacted to him… Ridiculously, he felt that a creature regarding him with such an abundant amount of sarcasm just had to know him personally. He didn’t know a person who he hadn’t had that effect on. And there were other things: its human nuances, the way it seemed to understand Dean perfectly, its protectiveness, and the mysterious circumstances of its existence – last time Dean checked, sea monsters were just a myth.
How did it get there? Why was it the only one of its species Dean could see? Could there be a rational explanation to this – could it have… changed, like Dean had?
The creature’s mystery wouldn’t leave Dean’s mind. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something familiar about the being, but he didn’t dare to theorize. It was absurd, all of this – but wasn’t his own existence absurd, too? Put the half-fish part aside, he should have died in that flood. Something saved him. Something prevented him from dying and turned him into something else that wasn’t quite human. Couldn’t it be, say, if a certain person disappeared, that he had a near-death experience and met the same fate as Dean’s?
He didn’t know exactly when or how, but at some point within the endless days in the sun-struck sea, Dean made a decision. An assertion, that the monster wasn’t a sea monster at all. So one morning – he’d stopped counting the days a long time ago – he sought the monster out, and he found it.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” he said, swimming closer to it than he’d ever dared before. The creature watched him peacefully. “Do you understand?”
The creature splashed his tail once.
“Okay,” Dean said. “I’ll take that as a yes, I guess.” Splash, again.
“I…” But he didn’t even know where to start. So he looked into its eyes, and he said,
“Cas?”
Splash. So strong it soaked Dean and everything around them.
“Ugh. Shit.” Splash. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Splash. “How did you…” He looked Cas over, unable to help the horrified expression that came across his face. “What the hell happened?” Silence. “Okay. We’ll find a solution. Just… Just hang in there.”
What does he do? Gods, what does he do?
“Alright.”
He knew fairy tales about cursed creatures that were turned human again once the curse has left them. If Cas and him were mythical creatures, it was more than likely that the answer was hidden in the ending of one of the legends.
“Is this a curse? Are we cursed?”
Silence.
“How do you lift off a curse?” Dean asked desperately. Cas dove into the ocean, coming back up after a few moments with an uprooted seaweed, and spat it at Dean.
“Not with the seaweed again,” Dean whined. “Listen. Okay. This is gonna sound really stupid, but…” He took a stabilizing breath. He didn’t know what the laughter of a sea monster sounded like, but he thought maybe he was about to find out. “You know how in fairy tales, sometimes… a true love’s kiss, you know… lifts the curse?”
Silence.
“Do you think that might help?”
Silence.
“I’m going to kiss you now.”
Silence. Cas didn’t move. He watched Dean as he swam closer, reached for his moist head, and leaned in for a kiss.
Nothing happened.
“Oh, no.” He leaned away. “I just… Oh, Gods. I just kissed a moist sea creature for nothing.” Cas made an expression that was clearly insulted. “Oh, come on, I can’t pee,” Dean spat out. “We’re both in a tight spot here, alright?”
Cas huffed in resignation.
“What are we going to do?”
There was not much to do other than think. They didn’t have access to books, or to anything human that might help with the thinking. So they thought, together. And together they devised a plan.
The first part of the plan was no crazier than the others, but it was the most inaccessible. Yet, after a while, Dean had a letter explaining everything written and sent to his brother with the next stray ship that passed them by. It was a long shot; surely, Sam thought his brother was dead, and their story was beyond unlikely. If the letter even arrived at its destination, who’s to say Sam wouldn’t think it was a hoax, or that he would believe Dean’s story? And even if he did, the chances of him finding a cure…
It all made Dean’s head ache. But it didn’t matter. Cas was alive, Cas was here, and they were going to get themselves out of this mess somehow.
A letter from Sam arrived with a ship earlier than Dean had expected. According to Sam, Dean’s story had taken him by somewhat of a surprise, but it didn’t shock him. He read the lore, and apparently things like that “happened sometimes”. With the letter, he sent two small jars of potions that should lift the curse and keep them alive. They looked absolutely disgusting – dark burgundy mixed with green floaty things – but Dean decided he’d take the chance.
“Here,” he said, handing Cas the first one. “At least I’m able to talk.”
Cas drank it – but nothing happened. They stared at each other, lost.
“You think…” Dean said after a moment. “You think you’re too big?” Cas watched reluctantly as Dean opened the second jar and handed it to him. “Try it.”
He didn’t move.
“Try it,” Dean repeated, his tone harsh and flat. He could live with a tail. He could live with a tail and Cas, for sure. But he did not want to live knowing he’ll never hear Cas’ voice again.
Hesitantly, Cas drank the second potion. At first, nothing happened. But the change came. And before long, he was human again, and Dean didn’t have the words to express how good it was to see his face.
Cas did have the words.
“Holy mother burning in hell,” he muttered, stretching his arms in front of himself and gaping at them. “Holy mother.”
Dean swam towards him, trying to kiss him, but Cas pushed him away. He dove, and came back with some seaweed, uprooted so roughly that seawater-soaked dirt still clung to its roots.
“Again with the lettuce?” Dean complained.
“Plant,” Cas replied, sounding much grouchier than Dean would have wanted him to sound after – well, before, since he wouldn’t even kiss Dean – their touching reunion. “Earth. Water.” He grabbed the knife Dean had found in the water after the pirate fight and had kept, and sliced a cut through his palm. “Human blood.” He let his blood drip onto the bundle and handed it to Dean.
Dean stared at it, unsure how he was supposed to react. “…Ew?”
“Down it,” Cas said, still surly. Dean recalled all the many times Cas had spit seaweed onto him, and began to see why.
“Is that…”
“Yes, it’s the same thing I drank, just… saltier.”
“You’re one to talk,” Dean muttered under his breath.
“Just eat it.”
With a preparatory clench of his teeth, Dean took the bundle and started chewing on it. As he started to change, Cas’ face did too. His expression softened. Once Dean was finally human again, Cas scooted closer and kissed him with a smile.
There were still questions unanswered, but he supposed they could all wait. Every other thing that wasn’t Cas’ lips could wait.
“Are we going back home?” Cas asked when they parted.
“They all think we’re dead.”
“They all want us dead,” Cas said.
“So?”
“So… Let’s go raise a little hell.”